I see what you’re doing there, Raptors. As cool as that is, I’m not falling for it. You’re not tricking me into watching any Raptors games.

Second, Tebow:

But, of course, that was not what the past week was about, either. Tim Tebow became “compelling” because he became a character in the great national dumbshow that is our culture war. And we should be very clear about one thing — he wasn’t dragooned into this. Nobody drafted him. He walked into this role with his eyes open. Before he ever took a snap in the NFL, he appeared in an anti-choice television ad with his mother that was sponsored by Focus on the Family, an influential anti-choice, anti-gay-rights organization founded by the Rev. James Dobson. He knew what he was doing.

Grantland is pretty hit or miss, right? It’s not a bad website, but it can feel unfocused. There’s no sense of coherence into some kind of whole. I enjoy Jonah Keri, and I enjoy Charles P. Pierce, but I don’t enjoy them in the same way and it seems odd to sort them together, leaving “sports!” as the only common thread. I find it odd to have this piece by Pierce and something by Jane Leavy on the top of the page, and then “The Grantland Reality TV Fantasy League” somewhere below those two. One of those things is not like the others.

Basketball!

Mike D’Antoni cleared up some of those concerns, saying that the offense would run through Carmelo Anthony, doing that whole point forward thing. That isn’t ideal, nor is it particularly reassuring, but that’s perhaps the biggest misconception about D’Antoni’s offense. It doesn’t require point guards so much as it requires playmakers. Whether said playmaker is 6’2 or 6’8 makes little difference. But with Douglas as the starter, in the first preseason game we saw the difference between Douglas’ position and Melo’s role.

Tremendous use of video in a post. It’s immediately apparent how much a better passer Anthony is than Douglas. When I see stuff like this, I wish MLB would relax their video policies. Imagine a post breaking down pitch sequences in a similar manner? The difference between the swings Johan Santana induces on “fastball in, fastball in, changeup away” and “fastball in, fastball away, changeup away,” explained with actual game footage. Or, here are the swings David Wright put on a breaking ball after an inside fastball in 2008, and here are his swings on the same pitches in 2011. Come on, MLB. Come on.